


Resonance

by Yuugurehime



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Double Tsundae, F/M, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, shameless self indulgence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuugurehime/pseuds/Yuugurehime
Summary: Warrior of Light, Kokejin Qalli, is haunted by his memories of the fields of Carteneau and the Seventh Umbral Calamity. Fordola rem Lupis, still adjusting to the overwhelming influx of thoughts and emotions brought about by the Resonant, peers into his memories of what would have been the end of an era.
Relationships: Fordola rem Lupis/Warrior of Light
Kudos: 4





	1. Bad Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I don't post often on AO3 because I hate the way I write and think it's total garbage. That said, if you've decided to take a look at my shameless self indulgence here, then I give you my most sincere thanks for stopping by to read, or even to glance! I really do appreciate it!

He hated the sky. 

Kokejin Qalli blinked wearily, his prone body splayed against the lifeless grey rocks of the ground beneath him. Try as he might to shield his eyes from the unexpected and blinding deep red glow of the sky, it would not, in all of its audacity, allow him to shy away from the seeping, blood-like colors that darkened the clouds above. It remained, enduring in its mockery, and senseless in its sickening twisting about. 

Having been born on the Steppe, the sky above had always stretched out so openly above him that the wonder of its infinite mysteries enthralled him as no other story had the ability to do. That enduring, impossible span of blue was not always a sense of wonderment however. To Kokejin, the sky was a portent of disaster. Though uncomfortable beyond reason to behold the crimson glare, his eyes began to clear away the fraying edges of his vision that he might witness Dalamud in all of its vile beauty once more. 

He knew this place all too well, and what it meant to him. He forced himself to sit up, tail violently swaying as his senses became sharper with each movement. The stomach-churning sensation of being suspended above the ground struck him like an all too familiar meteor, yet in his aloneness he girded himself and fought through the vomit-inducing memory. The traumatic appearance of shimmering, flawless white armor juxtaposed on the red that signaled the end of all life on Eorzea was a memory not far-gone enough for him. 

He hated the sky. 

The storm that heralded his birth heralded disaster at the same time, as though he were born under an unlucky star, or that perhaps the gods that pulled the strings of fate garnered some sort of amusement in their play. That a storm frightened him meant little in the face of the vibrant and burnt sky Nael deus Darnus had presented him. He had come far since those times, and yet there was a sense of emptiness that came with the lack of impact from cleaving Nael in half with but one swing. 

Her body fell away into the darkness, soundlessly, though Dalamud remained as a monument to his failures. He could not prevent its fall, even as the so-called “Warrior of Light” whom the people had come to know him as before his forced departure. He could do no more than to close his eyes to the memory of what happened next, his teeth grinding painfully while the damning red light only grew in intensity until it enveloped him completely. 

He opened his eyes to gaze upon a sky burnt black by ash and smoke. Alone, he stood, in the fields of Carteneau surrounded by the bodies of those who fought and fell. Why had he, alone, been saved when his failures had been made so clear. He couldn’t have stopped Dalamud, no matter how hard he fought, or prayed. He couldn’t have stopped Bahamut those fateful five years ago. He knew full well he would have perished should he have even made the attempt. 

Yet try he should have. He should have been given the option to face the fire. What kind of “hero” was he to the people that had suffered insurmountable losses during the five years he had been absent? What he had done, in the end, was give them false hope. He hated the sky, and closed his eyes with the hope of getting away from it, and away from the incinerated dead around him. 

Kokejin gasped as his eyes snapped open, his breath caught in his chest as he jolted up. His breathing was quick, disjointed, as though he struggled to even remember the act. 

“Are you okay?” His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, silver eyes settling against a deep green. He didn’t recall pressing himself so close to her, but his body seemingly acted on its own. The vaunted Warrior of Light, savior of all the realms, and the preeminent swordsman of his time pressed himself against Fordola’s body, his head on her chest and expression empty. 

“Just...just bad dreams.” 

“I know.” Her response caused him to briefly gaze up at her. He recognized the wince as a pain she associated with experiencing other’s memories. There was no doubt that while he dreamed of the pain he’d suffered in shorthand; she had seen it all. “Didn’t ask if you were having bad dreams. I asked if you were okay.” 

“No.” His voice was small, barely audible, and betrayed no hint of what he was feeling as he said it. Every night those dreams haunted him, sometimes as a hellfire consuming his body, and sometimes as a dull, and half-remembered wound. He hadn’t been “okay” since Carteneau. 

“I still think about it, sometimes.” He closed his eyes and remembered that red sky with painful clarity. The screams of the dying, the howling of the dead, and the sight of the calamity given flesh. “What I did wrong. What I could’ve done. What difference just a little more power would have made.” 

“Pointless shite not worth a second thought.” Sharp as her words were, he couldn’t help but to relax at the gentle squeeze of his shoulder, right above where his left arm had been amputated. Fordola, though not known for being soft, was careful in the way she handled the then-fragile Auri boy. A moment of silence passed between them, her face buried in short hair as strikingly silver as his eyes. 

“I’m not saying forget Carteneau. I saw it, and I know what it means. You’re letting it strangle you, though. If you’re looking to be a living memory of that time, it shouldn’t bind you like a weight.” 

“Says the expert on the issue.” 

“Keep talking, lizard. Your horns would make a nice trophy.” She managed, a snort and a smirk doing a wonderful job of not-hiding-her-feelings-at-all. There was a sense of contentment in laying there, keeping the swordsman supreme embraced as he was, but a thought occurred to her, as she had been around him long enough to understand just what sort of person he was. 

“How about this,” She began, loosening her hold on him. “I’ve got to work off this new headache, and you likely won’t get back to sleep with your heart beating out of your damn chest. Let’s cross swords and see if we can’t get you back to being an annoyingly peppy, stick-swinging lizard.” 

“I’m not a lizard,” He responded with a pout. The fires of competition were clear in his eyes, however. “but you’re on, Flamelady. Don’t cry when I send you flying.” 

“Flamelady?” She scoffed, sitting up straight. “Here’s hoping your blade isn’t as dull as your wit. Come on. Get up and get dressed. Let’s take this outside.”


	2. Feedback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Fordola soundly defeats Kokejin in a spar, the visions she experiences by being in proximity to him become more and more vivid, and twice as painful as a result. Still, she's unwilling to let him suffer in silence, and resolves to endure the pain on his behalf.

It wasn’t difficult to tell that Kokejin was far from putting his all into their late-night duel. She wasn’t actively attempting to read his moves, instead relying on the most basic techniques she knew to answer whatever he threw at her. Even that, however, seemed to be too much for him despite her knowing for a fact not a swordsman alive equaled the otherwise spirited Xaela. His strikes were ineffectual, his movements sluggish, and his face filled with enough worry for the both of them as he struggled to even maintain a basic stance. 

Fordola was uncertain in her approach, recognizing his growing weakness with every half-hearted clash. She couldn’t turn her eyes away, or pretend that she didn’t know what was holding him back, regardless of how much, and how poorly, he attempted to hide it. 

Crack. 

The resounding impact of wooden blade upon wooden blade brought forth images in her mind that caused her to stumble under the weight of the memories. In her head she saw Nael van Darnus crossing her spear against a fledgling Kokejin’s sword while the fires of conflict raged below them. In her mind, she saw the faces of countless faceless soldiers wiped away in swaths by flames from the sky. His pain, his sorrow, it was too much to bear for her alone and yet he struggled beneath the weight in the hopes that he could carry on. 

He couldn’t. His soulless attacks proved that he couldn’t. She didn’t need the Resonant to see Kokejin fraying at his edges, falling away like a torn and discarded doll. She pushed through the countless flashes of the torture he’d endured in his self-perceived failure, and the pain such a powerful resonating force brought forth in order to effortlessly glance away a lukewarm thrust with a swipe of her own that near unbalanced him in his unfocused state. Upon bringing her blade up to his neck, Fordola watched him smile, but his expression quickly fell. 

“I guess you win. I’ll step up my game for next time.” 

“Your heart wasn’t in it in the least. Talk to me, Kokejin.” She released her grip on her sword, allowing it to fall to the ground at seeing his downcast face. It was a difficult thing to watch happening in front of her. How soft she had become since deigning to accompany others on their journey to right the world after her own actions had placed it in jeopardy once. 

“It’s alright, I--” 

“No,” She interjected, stepping forward towards him, her gaze angled down but not meeting his as he continued to stare at the ground between them. “I get it, I’m not Alphinaud or Alisaie. I haven’t known you for nearly as long. What I am, though, is here right now. Stop playing the stoic hero and talk to me.” 

Kokejin’s arms crossed, as though he were attempting to close himself off from her, yet his gritted teeth spoke volumes. She didn’t need him to say a word as the painful flashes of memory still assaulted her vision more and more. It was less important for her to hear the words than for him to say them, however. If he intended to keep that wonderful title of “strongest” that he had so desperately clawed his way towards obtaining, he would have to lay down his weaknesses eventually. 

Silence permeated the air in its painfully stifling way, until... 

“I...I can still hear them sometimes.” Fordola kept her face neutral, watching the otherwise unshakeable Xaela withdraw like a flower folding in on itself. In comparison to the strength that he was known to display when fighting god-like beings, she had never envisioned a side of him so held back by the past. It was almost jarring to imagine the withdrawn swordsman in front of her as the same one who had fought vigorously to face down Zenos. 

“It happened so long ago that I shouldn’t, and I’m unsure if they’re even real. Yet, I can hear it at my weakest moments. ‘Whose fault is this?’ Ghosts from the Calamity haunting me because I wasn’t strong enough to save them. I can’t even turn to answer, they’re gone before I can even try. But...but...!” 

Kokejin’s hold on himself tightened even more while refracted light revealed the tears streaming down his face that he did his best to hide under the cover of darkness. He laughed, a hollow and dry sound, hoping to gain some semblance of control over his thoughts, but he could find no ground to stand on. Fordola bit the inside of her cheek, her natural glare softening despite the stiffness she felt in her body. She felt as though she could hardly move...she had no idea what could even be done for him. 

So, she reached out. She pulled Kokejin towards her, her hand resting on the back of his head as she embraced him. He was silent, if only briefly, before unsteady laughter gave way to yet more freely falling tears. 

“I’m sorry...you shouldn’t have to see me like this. I already saw it in your face. This hurts you too, doesn’t it? You should just--” 

“Shut up.” Curt and sure as her response was, Kokejin was right. The palpable emotions he felt were only compounded by the Resonant sending vision after vision crashing down around her head like inescapable noise. To those without the “fortune” of experiencing the thoughts and emotions of others, she could hardly imagine attempting to explain the indescribable pain that wracked her whenever she experienced another influx of thought. 

“Why are you...?” He didn’t finish, instead carefully holding onto her. There, in her arms, she felt that the indomitable Xaela could truly break at the smallest provocation. 

“You already know my story,” She began, her jaw tight as though sewn with steel wire. “The people that attacked my father and I...they might’ve killed me, were the cards to fall differently. If one memory never leaves me, it will be being held exactly like this...sheltered from that pain.” Had she only been resolved to say something similar earlier in life. They might have been allies rather than enemies. 

“But--” 

“I know. It hurts more than I can say. Still, if it’s the one good thing I can do in this life, let me protect you, right now.” She was uncertain if her meaning reached him, but he seemed to calm, his breathing slowing while they stood there, wrapped tightly in each other’s embrace as if the other would fly away the second one let go. 

“Waxing poetic is supposed to be my thing...” He mused quietly, his voice soft, but emotions more stable. If that’s what it took, she wasn’t going to complain, but she couldn’t lie and say she didn’t feel just a bit awkward standing there with him. The two of them the only people in the world at that moment...an amusing thought. Yet, only a thought.


End file.
